vulturine

My friend is cutting herself again because she feels abandoned by everyone. She has 2 months left at the shelter before they boot her out. This woman is 29. I feel like telling her she's way too old for that BS. I used to do that too, but I found the wonderful world of science and alcohol abuse, so I got over it.

Should I buy her something? We were supposed to go out and get random tattoos after Adam died, but she had some kind of skin problem and couldn't go. I want to get my dagger tattooed on the side of my arm beside the dead bird and the Saturn under retrograde scar cover-up that I've wanted for a long time now. The only other tattoo I have on this arm is a scar cover-up and I have another couple planned for the rest of my arm. There are some areas that can't be fixed, but I can live with that. But anyway, why give yourself more scars when you can get some beautiful, artwork to express whatever instead?

Should I do it? I miss her. She's the only person besides my partner that I see. I'm sure I can come across a couple hundred for whatever she wants and something small for me.

vulturine

The way she described it, "there are strips of flesh hanging from my wrists," sounds like she really went to town. So I asked if anything important got damaged and apparently nothing did.

Mountainmanbob

Why don't you try to get her some professional help?

If their is some available?

As you know -- she's in harms way.

M-Bob

vulturine

She has a psychiatrist, but they're really useless unless you need to be medicated. The kind of specialist she needs is way too expensive for low-income people. Mine was $180/hour. Kinda helped. At least she gave me homework and a plan to work on. Psychiatrists just write you a script for some antidepressants and their job is done.

But as a friend, what can I do? Basically just "hey, let's hang, forget about our lives for a few hours," right? It was so much easier when I had a car and money. What I'm good at, isn't really being the "let's all cry and jerk each other off about depression together" friend, it's being the silly, outrageous, not-PC friend who will poke fun and generally try to make light of everything for a laugh. It's not that I don't love her, I just think she needs to move on from this teen goth girl crap. Wish I could help her out with some autonomy or self-esteem or something useful, but I can't.

tomsteve

" So I asked if anything important got damaged and apparently nothing did. "
something extremely important got damaged. its internal. something self harm cant heal.
imo, the best way you can show you care is by helping her get help. look for some support groups and literature online-preferably from a .edu or .org
http://sioutreach.org/

" I used to do that too, but I found the wonderful world of science and alcohol abuse, so I got over it. "

i did self harm a long time ago -before i ever started drinking.
then i started drinking and stopped self harm.
times early on,when i wasnt yet a full blown alcoholic( this was back between 7-10th grade), i had periods of months that i didn't drink and self harm resumed.
when i became a full blown alcoholic, no more self harm.
i traded self harm methods.

Anna

I'm not sure if you know of this link but it might help your friend:

bus ? Index page

vulturine

Ahah! BUS. I've had an account on there since Fri, Nov 7, 2003! I was still in elementary school, holy hell that's nostalgic.

"A few minutes ago... I cut my wrists and then started feeling really sick but ignored it. Then the room started spinning, I got really dizzy and almost blacked out. When the bleeding had stopped a bit everything seemed sort of distant and I couldn't hear anything in the room."
-13 year old me

DAMN. I didn't screw around.

But in all seriousness, I don't know if telling her she needs help is going to do anything. What she really did want help with was her eating disorder, so she went to admission for an eating disorder unit, but got rejected. Can I phone someone about that? I'm really enraged noone will help her eat properly. This happened last week. She's been complaining about complications from the eating disorder for years, but keeps getting rejected by doctors because she isn't over or underweight. She binges and purges, it should be evident from her yellow nub teeth that she has a problem. :s

tomsteve

welp, tellin me I needed help didn't help me either. helping me see and understand I needed help was helpful for me to want help.
the doctors that have been sought- what were their specialty?
maybe theres other sources of help for it, just like for the self harm?

vulturine

I never really asked, but I generally think all that psych stuff is lame. I think she could benefit from seeing someone like my old therapist, the DBT one. My therapist was trained to help people out with the borderline traits, so mostly impulse control problems. The thing about that is you have to be healthy to do DBT because it requires exercise.

I don't know, the actual cutting seems like not such a big problem since it's been going on for so long. I was just alarmed she said anything to me. I feel weird about suggesting actual help because that almost seems like a betrayal or hypocrisy. I've been complaining about substance abuse for a long time, and she just offered a distraction, which was what I wanted.

tomsteve

"i don't know, the actual cutting seems like not such a big problem since it's been going on for so long."

if its been going on a long time, yes it is a big problem, much bigger than you are making it out to be.

My friend is cutting herself again because she feels abandoned by everyone

there are strips of flesh hanging from my wrists.

this is serious. disracting hasnt helped you and it wont help her.

vulturine

Welp, she isn't replying to my texts, so this was a pointless topic. :/

tomsteve

no, vulturine, its not a pointless topic. youre showing a concern and that's awesome!self harm and eating disorders are very serious and should be handled as such.
does your friend live close enough to stop in and check in on her?